Whatever your size of business, this Site Safe guidance will help ensure you’re covered under the new health and safety legislation.
The good news is that if you were already doing the right thing under the previous law, then it is unlikely that you need to make major changes now that the new Health and Safety Act has come into effect.
On the other hand, if you’ve been neglecting health and safety entirely, then the new Act presents a very good opportunity to review your health and safety practices, your culture and how you manage risk.
Here are some of the key changes under the new Act.
1. PCBU – (person conducting a business or undertaking) is a key new term. The PCBU has the ‘primary duty of care’ to ensure the safety of workers and anyone affected by its work.
2. Work participation – a stronger emphasis on worker participation and engagement to ensure that workers are engaged with health and safety.
3. Risk management – shifts the focus from monitoring and recording incidents to proactively identifying and managing risks.
4. Safety is everyone’s responsibility – no one can ‘opt out’ and safety becomes everyone’s responsibility. All parties from executives to workers have health and safety responsibilities.
5. Due diligence for directors – the Act places more legal responsibility on executives of an organisation to manage risks and keep people safe.
6. Stronger fines and penalties for non-compliance – the Act significantly increases the category of offences, with a three tiered hierarchy being introduced along with a range of other offending provisions.
Along with the key term of ‘PCBU’ the Act also clearly sets out the different roles and responsibilities. The four key roles are: PCBU (eg. the business entity), Officers (eg. chief executive or director), Workers (eg. employees) and Visitors (eg. customers).
Site Safe has produced a free guide with more information on the four roles and the different responsibilities under the new Act which is available here through sitesafe.org.nz. Under the new Act, everyone from directors to workers will have some form of responsibility for health and safety and we recommend that you gain an understanding of what these responsibilities are.
Potter Interior Systems continue our commitment to health and safety and currently have SiteWise status GREEN.
